The scoop on Rupe - with help from mum

A new “tell-all” book about media behemoth Rupert Murdoch is to be published two months earlier than scheduled because the author, Vanity Fair veteran Michael Wolff, managed to write it faster than expected after receiving “an enormous amount of access” not only to Murdoch but also his entire family. As well as the more visible members of the Murdoch clan (wife Wendi, sons James and Lachlan, daughter Elisabeth), Wolff was even given face time with Murdoch’s 99-year-old mother, Elisabeth.

“[She] gave me a joyride on her golf cart at her estate outside of Melbourne,” he told the New York Observer. When asked why a normally private man like Murdoch would talk at length with any writer, Wolff claimed that the mogul was simply in a good mood following his purchase in 2007 of the Wall Street Journal. “He is just pleased as punch with himself“, said Wolff. “In a good way.”

Titled The Man Who Owns the News, the book will focus on Murdoch’s sensational – and long-winded - takeover of the WSJ. Originally slated to appear in February 2009, it will now be in the shops for Christmas. Cynics claim that the book, which earned Wolff a six-figure deal from Random House, will be nothing more than an extended puff piece. “The author and the subject were born to be put together,” claimed a spokesman for the publisher. A commentor on the Gawker gossip website was less diplomatic: “Two scorpions in a jar.”